In recent years, there has been a shift towards innovative energy and environmental technologies to moderate climate change, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce air and water pollution, promote economic development, expand energy supply options, increase energy security, decrease dependence on imported oil, and strengthen rural economies.
One of these technologies entails conversion of a carbonaceous feedstock into a product gas which can then be converted into liquid fuels, hydrocarbons and other useful compounds. Carbonaceous feedstock along with one or more gaseous or liquid reactants are introduced into a pressurized reactor where they undergo one or more thermochemical reactions to produce the product gas. Ideally, the carbonaceous feedstock is introduced into the reactor such that: feedstock throughput is high, the feedstock has high surface area to promote thermochemical reactions, the feedstock is distributed within the reactor, and the pressure of the reactor is maintained, even as the carbonaceous feedstock is continuously being introduced into the reactor.
A liquid fuels production system should be able to produce liquid fuels from large quantities of carbonaceous materials. However, processing large quantities of carbonaceous materials requires having sufficient throughput in each of a number of serially connected systems. These include feeder systems, gas production systems, gas clean-up systems, synthesis systems and gas upgrading systems. The capacities of the various systems should be selected so that they collectively cooperate to meet up-time and fuel production requirements while also maximizing the return on investment (ROI).